WikiLeaks

Fellow Brussels Blogger Josh Chaffin has a fun piece in today’s paper on MEP Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who has moved into a central role in the suddenly intensifying negotiations over the so-called “Six Pack” – the six legislative measures that would give the EU the power to fine member states that don’t get their fiscal houses in order.

In the story, Josh quotes a 2004 US diplomatic cable we obtained through WikiLeaks where Pat Cox, then the European parliament president, gave Rockwell Schnable, the US ambassador to the EU, a run-down on how Verhofstadt was handling losing the European Commission presidency to José Manuel Barroso. As we said in the story, Cox said Verhofstadt was “devastated”.

As we frequently do here at the Brussels Blog, we thought we’d give readers a bit more on the cable. After the jump, we’ve included the entire section where Cox talks about Verhofstadt. It’s an interesting read. Read more

In today’s paper, we have a story about the history of bad blood between Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, an account based on dozens of US diplomatic cables that we got our hands on thanks to WikiLeaks.

The two men are summiting today in Brussels, so we thought it would be worth posting the full text of a cable from the US embassy in Moscow detailing the last time the two men summited in February 2009. Although we have redacted the names of the officials who briefed US diplomats, they included a senior European Commission official and a top diplomat in Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs. Read more

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, heads off for a tour of the Middle East and North Africa today – a trip that’s expected to include both Tunisia and Egypt – after coming under quite a bit of criticism for her handling of the upheaval in the region.

But the criticism has not all been in one direction. Ahead of her trip, a senior EU official briefed the Brussels press corps and laid some of the blame for the frequently discordant European reaction to recent events in the laps of national foreign ministers.

“One of the difficulties that we have is making sure that we not only speak with one voice but act with one voice,” the official said. “I mean, how many foreign ministers are in the Middle East now? It’s a bit complicated. The high representative wants to go, but can she go the same day or the day after when three foreign minsters have been? To do what? It’s a real problem.” Read more

Among the more revealing EU-related disclosures in the WikiLeaks trove are not about Washington’s view of the European Union, but rather about how members of the EU view each other.

One of the more colourful dispatches that have come out thus far is an April 2004 account of an otherwise dull Brussels evening event in which a US official was seated at a table with the featured speaker: Chris Patten, the high-profile British diplomat who at the time was the EU’s foreign affairs commissioner.

Labeled “Dining with Chris: Random Thoughts from Relex” – relex is Euro-speak for the foreign policy, or “external relations,” portfolio – the cable offers Patten’s vivid views on everything from Romania (a “feral nation”) to then-Russian President Vladimir Putin (when discussing Chechnya, “Putin’s eyes turn to those of a killer”). Read more

One of the most high-profile dust-ups between the US and the European Union since President Barack Obama took office was a White House decision to skip out on a May summit with the EU that was to be held in Madrid during Spain’s turn at the bloc’s rotating presidency.

But two cables made public as part of the WikiLeaks dump this week present a more complicated picture of the White House decision-making. They make clear that senior US officials believed that there simply was not enough substance to the agenda to make the meeting worthwhile.

Among the hundreds of confidential US diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks thus far, very few have dealt with Washington’s relations with the EU. But occasionally, EU leaders have popped up in summaries of other international events in which they have only tangentially been involved.

The US account of the “at times…openly hostile” meeting, where Sarkozy “at one point grabbed FM Lavrov by the lapels and called him a liar in very strong terms,” has been reported widely. Less noticed, however, was Moscow’s reception of José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president.

In a section labeled secret and “noforn,” meaning it was not to be shown to non-American officials, an unnamed French source retells how “the Russians treated Barroso harshly and condescendingly, and tried to exclude him from many of the sessions.” Read more

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Welcome. This blog covers everything from the European Union's foreign and economic policies to the fortunes of its political leaders - as well as the more light-hearted aspects of life in Europe.

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Peter Spiegel is the FT's Brussels bureau chief. He returned to the FT in August 2010 after spending five years covering foreign policy and national security issues from Washington for the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, focusing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He first joined the FT in 1999 covering business regulation and corporate crime in its Washington bureau, before spending four years covering military affairs and the defence industry in London and Washington.

Alex Barker is EU correspondent, covering the single market, financial regulation and competition. He was formerly an FT political correspondent in the UK and joined the FT in 2005.

Duncan Robinson is the FT's Brussels correspondent, covering internet and telecommunications regulation, justice, employment and migration as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He joined the FT from the New Statesman in 2011